Regional crime lab prepares for evidence

Tim Berger / Staff Photographer

Burbank Mayor Jess Talamantes, right, wears orange glasses to see fluid evidence during a demonstration at the opening of the Verdugo Regional Crime Laboratory in the Glendale Police Department on Thursday. The lab is a tri-city partnership with Glendale, Burbank and Pasadena, and the ATF also partnered.

Burbank Mayor Jess Talamantes, right, wears orange glasses to see fluid evidence during a demonstration at the opening of the Verdugo Regional Crime Laboratory in the Glendale Police Department on Thursday. The lab is a tri-city partnership with Glendale, Burbank and Pasadena, and the ATF also partnered. (Tim Berger / Staff Photographer)

Veronica Rocha, veronica.rocha@latimes.com

A new long-awaited regional crime laboratory could begin processing vital ballistic analysis and DNA evidence for hundreds of unsolved property crimes as early as May, police said Thursday.

Local police and city officials on Thursday introduced the Verdugo Regional Crime Laboratory that authorities said will allow quicker processing of crime scene evidence in Glendale, Burbank and Pasadena.

“We could use DNA early on to intercede as rapidly as possible,” Glendale Police Ron De Pompa said at the news conference. “The sooner we intercede, the sooner we identify the culpable suspects, the sooner we break that crime cycle.”

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Burbank) secured $1.5 million in 2009 to establish the lab and relieve a DNA-testing backlog in violent and property crimes, in addition to Glendale, Burbank and Pasadena police investigations.

“The growth of a regional lab like this helps to empower the people in these communities to make sure that people who are victimized here don’t go without redress,” Schiff said.

The lab will specialize in computer forensics, crime scenes, latent prints, examine DNA evidence for violent and property crimes and analyze ballistics through a partnership with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. In some cases, vital DNA analysis could be turned around in 72 hours, officials said.

The lab still needs to be certified by the FBI and the American Society of Crime Laboratory Directors/Laboratory Accreditation Board.

The accreditation process will take about a month before the lab can begin examining evidence in May, De Pompa said.